work carried on by the fur trading officials, let us
pause to record the name of David Thompson, who
was the first man to undertake a thorough scientific
geographical survey of British Columbia. His was
not a race for private gain, but an effort to secure
a better understanding of the interior country, and
to study meteorological observations.

British Columbia, in fact the whole Dominion, owes
much of its present-day success to the fur trading
companies—the Hudson's Bay and North West Com-
panies—who pioneered early settlement and devel-
oped colonization by establishing routes connecting
their trading posts throughout the Province.

One of their number, James Douglas, became the
first governor of Vancouver Island, which, since the
transferring of the chief trading post from Astoria,
Oregon, to Victoria, developed into a small colony
of which the Hudson's Bay Company was given
complete control for colonization purposes. Owing
to the influx of the gold-seekers to the Fraser and
Cariboo in 1857, Douglas decided to take steps to
bring the mainland into line with the Island, and,
accordingly, assumed control. This action brought
the British Government to a point of considering the
advisability of creating another Crown Colony com-
prising the mainland. A detachment of Royal Engin-

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